Illegal Paint Job on Landmarked Block of Clinton Hill
We just got a tip that someone just started painting one of the brownstones on Grand Avenue between Gates and Putnam white this morning. (Yes, a certain blogger does live on this block.) Something tells us the Landmarks Preservation Commission didn’t sign off on this. If any readers are nearby, we’d appreciate a photo asap….
We just got a tip that someone just started painting one of the brownstones on Grand Avenue between Gates and Putnam white this morning. (Yes, a certain blogger does live on this block.) Something tells us the Landmarks Preservation Commission didn’t sign off on this. If any readers are nearby, we’d appreciate a photo asap. If anyone from LPC is reading, please get on the stick! Update 7/27: Here’s the photo from about 11:20 this morning. The address is 373 Grand Avenue. LPC confirms that there are no permits out on this.
Update 7/29: As the Daily News article reports, it turns out that—luckily—the owner was only repainting the area around the door. While we understand that some people feel it was an overreaction on our part to post about this before all the facts were known, here’s why we think it was warranted: First of all, had the painters been intending to paint the entire facade, every second counted when we got the tip (we were in fact in Dumbo, and not just across the street, when the tip came in, so popping over for a friendly chat was not an option); secondly, we were on the phone with LPC within five minutes of getting the tip, and LPC told us that (1) the owner had no permit for the painting and (2) that he had racked up, and failed to cure, several other landmark violations over the years. All these factors led us to conclude that, on balance, it was not worth taking the risk that something really destructive might happen. You know, better safe than sorry. With 20/20 hindsight, this was clearly the wrong call. Apologies to the owner—our obsession with historic brownstones may have gotten the better of us on this one.
Bottom photo by Rosier for the Daily News
Creating fear and panic to fuel his cause…wait, is Mr Brownstoner really george Bush?
Looks to me like the old guy has a tendency to try and skirt the law. Why else would he form a corporation for the building except to avoid inheritance taxes.
7:59
WTF are you talking about?!?! Some of us have actually lived in Brooklyn all our lives, not that it merits us any more credibility than new residents. But it just seems like certain new residents seem to bring with them this snobby attitude of everything has to be perfect and we don’t have to speak to our neighbors.
I still feet that Mr. B, go kill yourself.
the edit on this post doesn’t come anywhere close to an actual apology. You explain how you were right in the first place but then were proven wrong in the end. In fact, you were wrong to begin with and wrong in the end.
Who could read through all these comments and know what they’re replying to? (By way of saying, I hope I’m not repeating others…)
First: every community needs a lighthouse.
Second: Brownstoner is valuable for this.
Third: When blogging has salaries, perhaps it will afford the journalism practices which newspapers (should) adhere to.
Fourth: Am I the only one to have detected snarkiness in the Daily News column? Certainly the ‘MSM’ feels put upon, but since Brownstoner hadn’t called the Daily News into question, I was surprised there wasn’t more of a collaborative tone.
Fifth: Isn’t Todd Rundgren’s song “Just One Victory” the best, of all time??
Mrs. Kravitz, Mrs. Mertz, and all you over-the-fence yente neighbors…..
Brownstoner has jumped the shark. Just like when the little girl left Carroll Park with a male neighbor and everyone yelled “kidnap!”, or when 3 teenage boys went towel snapping.
This shit has got to stop. Mind your own.
“Oh, go renovate something!” And LEAVE YOUR NEIGHBORS ALONE!!!!
244 comments so far! Amazing! Imagine how much better the site would be if everyone had responded to valid questions in the Forum instead of putting in their 2 cents re this topic.
Oh, go renovate something!